Holiday entitlement

All employees have a statutory paid annual leave entitlement of four times their number of weekly working days/hours (i.e. 20 days for a five-day week).

Based on the collective labour agreement Retail non-food employees in the fashion, sport & shoes industries are entitled to 24 days of annual leave entitlement. Per holiday year, the employee is entitled to 182.4 hours of paid holiday leave (based on a working week of 38 hours on average, that is a working day of 7.6 hours on average).

Employees in the home furniture branch are entitled to 25 days of annual leave entitlement. Per holiday year, the employee is entitled to 185 hours of holiday leave (based on a working week of 37 hours on average, that is working day of 7.4 hours on average).

Employees that work part-time are entitled to the number of leave hours based on their contract hours. For example an employee in the fashion branch working 24 hours per week is entitled to 115.2 holiday hours.

The days above the statutory paid leave are non-statutory days. Statutory holidays lapse 6 months after the year in which they accrued. This means the holidays accrued in 2020 lapse on the first of July 2021. Non-statutory holidays lapse 5 years after the year they were accrued.

Holiday leave entitlements should accrue proportionately throughout the year. An employee that spends only part of the holiday year in the employer’s employment is entitled to a proportionate part of the holiday leave entitlement.

Accrual of holiday leave hours

In principle, the accrual of holiday leave hours is based on the number of agreed contract hours (that is, the base hours). If, over the course of a year, the employee works more hours than his base hours, then holiday leave entitlements also accrue over the additional hours, unless the additional hours are taken as leave hours in conformity with Article 4 of the collective labour agreement.

Annual leave entitlement also accrues during periods such as maternity leave, force majeure leave, sickness absence and annual leave itself.

Accommodation of leave

Employers should accommodate employees’ preferences with regard to when they take their annual leave, unless there are adequate business grounds for not doing so. In any event, at least two weeks’ leave should be taken at a time of the employee’s choosing.

Buying and selling holidays

Based on the collective labour agreement employees have the possibility to buy or sell four holidays in April of each year.

Selling holidays

Employees have the possibility to sell a maximum of four non-statutory holidays. For employees that work part-time the amount of holidays that can be sold is pro-ratio. The holidays are sold against the rate of the wage, holiday allowance and holiday leave.

To calculate this the salary is multiplied by 1,17. Are you in the home furniture industries? Then the salary is multiplied by 1,176. Selling non-statutory holidays is particularly interesting for employees that are threatened to lose non-statutory holidays due to the term of five years before they lapse.

Buying holidays

Emloyees are entitled to buy a maximum of four extra holidays in April. Fort employees that work part-time the amount of holidays that can be bought is pro-ratio. The holidays are bought against the rate of the wage, holiday allowance and holiday leave.

To calculate this the salary is multiplied by 1,17. Are you in the home furniture industries? Then the salary is multiplied by 1,176. Please keep in account that if the purchase is settled with the wage, the employee is at least entitled to payment of the statutory minimum wage. A solution can be to settle in may when the holiday allowance is paid out, so that there is more room to settle the purchase. If the employee does not use the bought holidays in the same year then these bough holidays are paid back before the 31th of December.

Public holidays

To work on Public holidays is a voluntary choice. If the employer is unable to arrange the required staffing with volunteers on a public holiday that does not coincide with a Sunday, then he can oblige the employee to work, unless this employee has demonstrable conscientious objections.

In the Netherlands the public holidays for 2025 are:

● Wednesday Januari 1^st: New Years day – 100% holiday supplement*
● Sunday April 20^st: First Easter day – 100% holiday supplement*
● Monday April 21^st: Second Easter day – 100% holiday supplement
● Saturday April 26^th: Kingsday – 100% holiday supplement
● Monday May 5^th: Liberation day – 100% holiday supplement
● Thursday May 29^th: Ascension Day – 100% holiday supplement
● Sunday June 8^th: Pentecost – 100% holiday supplement*
● Monday June 9^th: Whit Monday – 100% holiday supplement
● Thursday December 25^th: First Christmas day – 100% holiday supplement
● Friday December 26th: Second Christmas day/Boxing day – 100% holiday supplement

On Friday the 18th of March (Good Friday), Sunday May 4th (Remembrance of the dead) and Wednesday 24th of December (Christmas Eve) stores close at 19:00 hours. The municipality may deviate from the closing times as described above on Good Friday, Remembrance Day and Christmas Eve.

* If multiple supplement schemes apply simultaneously, then only the scheme most favourable to the employee applies.

The employee is entitled to continued salary payment on a public holiday (see definition in Article 2 of this CLA) if he would normally perform work on that day. This can be determined with an irregular working time pattern if, in the preceding 13 weeks, the employee performed work on that day in at least 8 weeks. In making this determination, all fulfilled hours (see Article 2) count as days worked. If the 8 out of 13 criterion is met, the continued salary payment is calculated based on the average of the hours worked on those days. If the employee performs work on a public holiday, he is moreover entitled to a supplement as described in Article 7.3 of the CLA.

When the store is open, there are 4 possibilities with regards to salary payment.

1. The employee who normally works on the day that coincides with the holiday and now does not come to work is paid his normal salary. This is because he is entitled to a paid day off. This does not come at the expense of his leave balance even though the store is open.
2. An employee who does come to work and the holiday coincides with a day he would normally also work will be paid for the hours he would normally work and the actual hours worked on the holiday. These hours are the supplement for working on the holiday.
3. If the employee who normally does not work on the day the holiday coincides with now does work, then this employee will receive his payment for the hours actually worked + the allowance as described above.
4. The employee who does not normally work on the day the holiday coincides with and does not come to work now will obviously not get paid for this day either.

Examples: